Helpful hints and friendly notes from the world-acclaimed photography instructors at BetterPhoto.com

September 2010

September 23, 2010

One challenge that we all face with close-ups is sharpness. Three major problems can occur:

1.Depth of field gets shallower and shallower as you get closer and closer.

2.Camera movement during exposure is magnified when you are close to the subject.

3.Autofocus can focus on the wrong part of the scene. In fact, just a slight breeze can cause even manual focus to be off.

There is no one simple answer to these challenges. Here are some ideas:

1.Remember that depth of field is very limited when you are up close. Sometimes you have to shoot at f/16 or so in order to get any depth of field ... however ...

2.Since camera movement is really magnified when up close, you need to shoot at 1/125 sec. or faster (unless you are on a tripod, but tripods can have their own challenges for close work). That may mean you should use a wider f/stop, such as f/8. It is better to have the image sharp with less depth of field than fuzzy with theoretically more depth of field.

3.Sometimes the sharpest images come when the subject is sharp and the background is way out of focus. That contrast in sharpness actually makes the sharp object look sharper. I have often shot up close with the widest apertures for just this effect.

4.Since focus can be a problem try either shooting manually or locking focus with autofocus. With manual, set a focus at roughly the right spot, then do not change focus. With autofocus, lock focus at roughly the right spot, then keep pressing the button that locks focus. Now with either method, move the camera gently forward and backward until you see the key element comes into focus, then take the picture.

5.When shooting on a tripod, use Live View for focusing if you have it. Magnify the Live View image on your LCD so you can really see details and what is or isn't in focus.

All of this is going to be affected by how far away from the subject you are (you have more depth of field as you back up), the focal length of the lens (the more telephoto the lens, the longer the focal length, the less depth of field and the more sensitivity to camera movement during exposure) and conditions (from wind to how close the background is to the subject).

September 22, 2010

Before or during a hot air balloon event, the balloonists often display the wonderful colors of their canopies at night by igniting their burners simultaneously. It’s called a "balloon glow", and it is definitely photographically challenging.

In the low light, you would think a tripod is necessary, but since the balloons are slightly moving (even though they are tethered to something on the ground), long exposures would produce blurred pictures. Therefore, when I shot the images you see here I raised the ISO to 400 and hand-held the camera in the twilight lighting.

(c) Jim Zuckerman

I quickly discovered that manual exposure mode on the camera was required to get good exposures. When the burners were ignited, they were so much brighter than the environment that the camera’s meter responded by underexposing the photos (in trying to make the brilliant fire middle toned as all meters are programmed to do) With no burners turned on, the exposures were fine.

By using manual mode, I let the burners become very light while the intense colors of the balloon fabric and the cobalt sky were saturated and well exposed. It took a few trial and error shots before I settled on the best f/stop and shutter speed combination. The two pictures you see here were taken at 1/60th at f/4 with a 24mm lens.

September 20, 2010

Here's a quick and easy way to create star trails in Photoshop CS5! Click on the fly-out menu in the Actions palette and load the action - Star Trails Rotation. Choose a photo of stars that you'd like to rotate to make star trails. Start the action, and watch the magic happen!

I used a single photo of stars that I shot on Florida's east coast for the star trail rotation action. For the foreground, I chose a castle that I photographed in Europe, and toned it blue. To tone your image, use a Hue Saturation adjustment layer and check Colorize. Move the hue and saturation sliders to create the look you like. Composited together, the two images tell a dramatic and interesting story. Have fun in Photoshop!

September 17, 2010

With a very clear night along the Oregon Coast, we went to work just south of Seal Rock – where there’s lots of great rock formations and pools of water that sit around them when the tide retreats. Low tide on the beaches here is great – even without a minus tide, you have so much to work with.
I am always struck by the difference between the sun setting and the post sunset glow – and much prefer the post-sunset colors and mood. See a photo example below.

(c) Brenda Tharp

I used a 3-stop hard graduated filter from Singh-Ray for this image to balance the sky against the land. I didn’t want detail in the rocks, in this case – at least not very much – as it was supposed to be a silhouetted scene. But the grad filter allowed me to pull up the details in the dark sand around the rock and the edges of the water. Processed using Lightroom and Nik Viveza.

This is a quick process of just one image – working off my laptop in the shade of a Douglas Fir in a park near Florence doesn’t allow for accurate processing – but it’s what we have available as we’re camping in a place without cell service!! Hope it looks as nice as it does on the laptop…

The beautiful autumn colors are coming very soon. You will be able to capture the rich, saturated colors in the leaves much better on overcast days when the light is soft and diffused.

I know this doesn’t make sense when you first think about it because bright colors are associated with direct sunlight. However, sunlight creates too much contrast, and the juxtaposition of dark shadows with bright highlights on each individual leaf means that the richness of the color is compromised.

Much better is to shoot when the sky is cloudy or even in a light rain. You can also get rich colors before the sun breaks the horizon in the morning or just after it sets in the late afternoon. Avoid direct sunlight and the images you take will be much better. The two examples you see above and below exemplify what I’m talking about.

September 06, 2010

I talk a lot about contrast in photography. Our eye/brain combination has a tremendous dynamic range — the ability to see complete detail in the shadows and highlights of a subject or scene — but the digital sensor (and film in the past) doesn’t have the same ability to capture subtlety.

photo (c) Jim Zuckerman

In a contrasty situation, like the sunlight striking a wall in the 15th-century Jewish cemetery in Prague, Czech Republic, my eyes saw a great deal of detail in those shadow areas. The photo, though, turned out very differently. The shadows went dark. In most situations, this is not desirable. This is why so many photographers use the HDR technique now. We want to reveal all the detail we can see.

HDR stands for high dynamic range, which, just as the name implies, allows us to see detail in a large range of tonal values (the result of making several exposures of the same scene and then combining them in the digital darkroom).

In this case, though, I like the contrast. It adds drama and visual impact to the subject. This goes to show that in art, there are always exceptions to the rule.

September 01, 2010

Black is a visually dynamic background for photography. It works for all kinds of subjects, and it also solves a lot of visual problems.

For example, at the recent Concourse d’ Elegance I photographed at Meadowbrook in Detroit, Michigan, I carried with me a piece of black velvet (I had 2 yards of it). When I wanted to photograph some of the beautiful details in the classic cars, it worked beautifully as in the photo of the tail fin of a 1959 Cadillac seen below. Distracting elements are instantly eliminated.

1959 Cadillac - photo (c) Jim Zuckerman

In addition, the monochromatic black background forces all of our attention on the subject. This is an artistic technique that has been used for centuries — making the background dark and the subject lighter to direct the eye exactly where the artist wants our focus.

I used the same technique when I photographed a beautiful dancer in Bali, Indonesia, shown below. This shot was taken outdoors in the shade. I had two people hold black velvet material behind the young girl, and the elements in the village were instantly eliminated. The exotic features and makeup of the dancer didn’t have to compete with anything behind her, and this made the portrait quite captivating in my opinion.